Vwen'tern, or greetings in the tongue of the Elves.
Here is a garden that blooms only after the sun is gone where thoughts and musings flit like shadows over moonlit leaves.
This blog is an extension of my store, click on the shop widget on the right to see what we have to offer!

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Head on over! Enjoy our new blog, expanded product descriptions, and an Ingredients Index.

This blogspot blog will eventually redirect there, so get a leg up by updating your bookmarks and signing up for our newsletter so updates, special offers, and discount codes will be delivered right to your inbox!

You can also subscribe to the blog itself by entering your email in the field in the sidebar.

Friday, October 13, 2017

NightBlooming is has three new categories, improved item descriptions, and helpful links that make it easier for you to find what you want on Etsy.

NightBlooming on Etsy benefits from the work I'm doing on the new nightbloominggarden.com! I've been taking new images, methods of organization, and item descriptions and using it to enhance NightBlooming's Etsy store.

Three New CategoriesWhen you visit NightBlooming on Etsy you'll find these additions:

Improved Item descriptionsAfter a decade on Etsy, my item descriptions were more what I thought they were vs what was actually on the page. A great example is Panacea's Hair Salve: before the update the description didn't contain how the salve smelled, that it contained protein, or how long it was expected to last. Now, all descriptions are more accurate (and hopefully more helpful!)

Item LinksOne thing that worried me about moving all samples to their own category was that people wouldn't see them if they clicked on where that sample used to live (Etsy doesn't let you sort an item into more than one category). To help users find items, I've added in links to different sizes as well as to any kits that product might be included in.

I hope you love the new listings and categories! Keep an eye out for future upgrades, including gift wrapping just in time for the holiday season!

Application: 1-2 drops of oil in the hands and massage into damp hair or into the scalp.

Detailed Ingredients:

• Coconut oil fractionated- Coconut oil is excellent as a skin moisturizer and softener. A study shows that extra virgin coconut oil is effective and safe when used as a moisturizer, with absence of adverse reactions. A study found that coconut oil helped prevent protein loss from the wet combing of hair when used for fourteen hours as a conditioner before washing the hair.

• Dragonsblood Resin- Dragon’s blood is a resin produced by the rattan palm tree, Daemonorops draco. It is native to Southeast Asia, appearing in tropical and subtropical climates and occurring on the Malay Archipelago, specifically cultivated in Sumatra. There are in fact many red resins colloquially known as dragon’s blood, many of which possess different properties and come from entirely different plants. The resin of Daemonorops draco is what was used in this blend.

• Evening Primrose Oil– This oil comes from the pressed the seeds of the Evening Primrose plant, Oenothera biennis . The yellow flowers only open in the evening, hence their common name. Evening Primrose Seed Oil is a rich source of gamma linoleic acid, an Omega 6 fatty acid and nourishes the scalp, hair, and even your nails.

• Borage Oil- Borage is also sometimes known as starflower, and grows wildly in many parts of the world. The use of borage in various medications dates back at least to Roman times, during which several writers described the mysterious healing properties of borage leaves (steeped in wine, which may also have contributed to said ‘healing properties’.) Borage oil is extracted from the seeds of the borage plant, and its essential ingredient has been found to be gamma linolenic acid, commonly known as GLA, which is an essential fatty acids. One experiment found that skin creams which contained borage oil were markedly more effective in replenishing dry, damaged skin than those creams which contained no borage. These results have been taken as evidence that borage oil proves a replenishing effect on the skin and hair, and is able to restore moisture and elasticity where it had previously been lost.

• Sandalwood Essential Oil- An anti-inflammatory with a warm woody scent, it soothes tender scalps and can help help heal eczema and psoriasis, soothe, shrink pimples and reduce dandruff.

• Vanilla Burbon CO2 Extract- Vanilla is not produced as pure essential oil. It is well advised to question the authenticity of Vanilla labeled pure essential oil. This soothing scent is perfect for relaxing and meditation.

• Patchoili Essential Oil- An oil with a earthy, smoky, spicy, and musky scent, it is an astringent, fungicide, astringent and deodorant, promoting a healthy scalp free of irritations and imperfections.

• Geranium Essential Oil- A heavy, sweet floral, geranium has always been known as a powerful wound healer and has been used in both medicine and aromatics. It sooths breakouts on the scalp while promoting healthy scalp skin and renewed circulation.

• Jasmine Absolute- This oil helps to bust stress- which can drain nutrients from the body. Using jasmine oil along with coconut oil has Shown to encourage hair growth. Along with adding to the volume and length, it gives dry hair a radiant lustre.

• Neroli Essential Oil- With its light, citrusy scent, neroli has antibacterial properties that helps keep scalps healthy. Cytophylactic, it promotes the generation of new cells and stimulates the health of those already present.

• Cedarwood Essential Oil– Excellent for both hair and skin care. It balances oily skin, soothes and helps to heal skin rashes, reduces oil in hair and skin. Famed cedars of Biblical times (Lebanon cedar) provided one of the world’s earliest perfumes. Other ancient cultures used cedarwood for sarcophagi and palace and temple building material.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

One of the great things I pride myself on is never taking away a product that a customer loves; even if it isn't a stocked item, it's available as a custom order.

When I first started doing the Signature Oil Blend of the Month it was pretty simple to have one current blend (that I'd mix up a larger amount of and use to fill orders) and then a few Previous Signature Oil Blends of the Month so customers could always go back and get their favorites.

The core idea is still good, the details need a bit of work. Two years in, there's now a vast catalog of Previous Signature Oil Blends of the Month for customers to pick from, and it's only going to keep growing.

Better Organized Listings
You'll find that on Etsy, and on the soon-to-be nightbloominggarden.com, that rather than being organized by date with a link to their blog post, each oil is now grouped by the type of scent, and all the ingredients are right there. No needing to go to an old blog post to browse each one. There are functional limitations on Etsy that impose limits on my desire for organization, but here's a preview of how it will look on the new site. Each section opens up to show all the oils in that scent category, with its picture, a link to its blog post, and all the ingredients. Each ingredient is detailed out for its specific benefits in the Ingredients Index. This is also a lot more sustainable for the ever-growing collection of oils.

The Way Things Are
Right now, this is how oil blends work: Each month I mix up several ounces of the Signature Oil Blend when it debuts. This makes filling bottles super-fast because everything is pre-blended. There's far, far too many Signature Oils to keep pre-blended in bulk, I'd risk the oils going rancid before I happened to use up a large amount. That's why when an order comes in for a Previous Signature Oil Blend of the Month, I mix up each tiny bottle as a one-off. This way I'm turning over all the oils in my inventory faster, meaning the freshest possible product for my customers. But that time adds up.

The Way Things Will Be After October 31st
Nobody likes surprise price jumps just before a saved-up-for purchase, so nothing will change for the next month.

Price adjustment- The difference between a night where 10 orders takes two hours and four hours to pack is literally dependent on how many 1/2 ounce oil bottles I'm blending up that night. The time it takes to make the current month's oil and all the ones after is different, so the prices will be, too. I'll be raising the cost on the 1/2 ounce Previous Signature Oil Blends of the month by $1.50. The cost of the 4oz Signature Oil Blends will stay the same. What this means is that if you have a long-time favorite, it's still cost-effective to pick up the 4 ounce version. If you're wanting to try new oils, you're encouraged to pick them up as they come out, before the price goes up (which happens either at the end of that month, or when the last of the pre-blended oil is used up after month's end), or save even more by enrolling in our Signature Oil Subscription program. tl:dr- the cost isn't the same because the time involved isn't the same.

Bringing back old favorites- As a way to offset a little of this, I'll be bringing back old seasonal favorites at the $7 price. For example, right now in the store you can pick up Samhain Spell (Oct 2015) and Pumpkin Chai (Oct 2016) for $7. After these are out of season / are no longer featured, they'll return to $8.50 and be found only in the Previous Signature Oil Blends of the Month listing again.

So very excited to have a date to announce to all of you :) The new nightbloominggarden.com will have so many things I've wanted for a long time and, most importantly, all these things will be in one place. Right now I have a storefront and a blog on two separate sites and nothing to unify them.Some of the big benefits will include:

Site newsletter: You can have things pushed right to your inbox, like special offers, sales, and updates). If you want to sign up in advance, you can head over there and do so now!

Better Blog: Wordpress gives me much more flexibility and a more professional format. This also means that this blog will redirect there after Oct 31 in case you forget to update your bookmarks.

Ingredients Index: Each product will have a full ingredients list, and each ingredient will go to its specific entry in the Ingredients Index, where the full explanation of what that ingredient is and what it does resides.

Articles, FAQs and experiments: In addition to the blog, I'll be posting some of the longer posts and experiments I've done in the past to serve as additional resources to customers. It will be an easy place to point people to for those looking for knowledge on everything from damaged hair to henna to honeybees.

Cleaner listings: Etsy, in an understandable effort to not want its listings to look like Ebay with 144pt purple Comic Sans text really locks down it's functionality. Because of this I have some very, VERY long listings. The new listings will have layered information, so the base listing is clean, but additional information like detailed ingredients, will only be a click away.

Checkout through Etsy: For the moment I don't have the time to manage two storefronts (although that's the eventual goal), so having checkout through etsy means that it supports credit cards, PayPal, Guest checkout, and automatic currency conversion are. This also lets me keep all my stats in one place.

Recommended / paired products: Etsy doesn't allow for targeted recommendations, but the new site will, making it easier to explore products you might like.

Press / About / Testimonials: These are all things that are either buried or non-existent on Etsy. If you feature NightBlooming on your blog, YouTube channel, or other platform, you'll see it appear in a special area of the site. When people say good things about NightBlooming, it'll be right in its own section, not buried in a morass of 8,000 specific product reviews.

More information and site previews will come soon! We're still working on developing features like a permanent discount for those that register on the site, too, so stay tuned!